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On the way back I shot a brace of guillemots. When I came in to the quay the blacksmith was there at work. A thought occurred to me; I asked him: "Going up my way?" "No," said he, "Herr Mack's given me a bit of work to do here that'll keep me till midnight." I nodded, and thought to myself that it was well. I took my fish and went off, going round by way of the blacksmith's house.
But about the same time all fear of starvation passed away: for on the 6th June I came across another dead bear, on the 7th three, and thenceforth, in rapidly growing numbers, I met not bears only, but fulmars, guillemots, snipes, Ross's gulls, little awks all, all, lying dead on the ice. And never anywhere a living thing, save me, and the two remaining dogs.
And across all that not a sign of life save the wings of the tireless birds, teal and duck, cormorants, and beyond the seaward rocks the great sea geese fishing and the guillemots flighting and the white tern darting like dragon-flies. Where was Bompard? Had he, by any chance, come back and taken some other road off the beach? There was only one way: the break in the cliffs, beyond the caves.
We ran through a narrow part of the stream, and found the ice beyond it to be "packed" and heavy. The birds were more numerous than usual; and, besides the fulmar peterels, boatswains, and kittiwakes, we saw, for the first time, some rotges, dovekies, or black guillemots, and terns, the latter known best to seamen by the name of the Greenland swallow.
It is a grand spot for seabirds razor-bills, puffins, guillemots, shags, and gulls. Annet, one of the largest of the uninhabited isles, is positively honeycombed with birds' nests, and at times it is ablaze with colour of the sea-pink and thrift.
The cliff-breeding species Guillemots, Razorbills, and Puffins are difficult to investigate because individuals vary so little, and the sexes resemble one another so closely; yet, despite these difficulties, we can gain some idea of the general purport of their activities.
The sight seemed to bring the hostile coast leagues nearer and the bagpipe crying of the guillemots as it died away behind them seemed a barrier passed, never to be re-crossed.
When the ram walked to the very edge of the mountain roof, so the boy could look down the mountain walls, he noticed that they were simply filled with birds' nests; and in the blue sea beneath him, lay surf-scoters and eider-ducks and kittiwakes and guillemots and razor-bills so pretty and peaceful busying themselves with fishing for small herring. "This is really a favoured land," said the boy.
There was nothing else on the face of the lonely waters except himself and a flock, or fleet, I should say, of razorbills and guillemots, very far away, who alternately showed all white breasts, and vanished as they dived and rose all together like white-faced, disappearing targets, and one gull, who wheeled and wheeled in the middle distance, with one eye on the divers and one on the skua, as if, gull-like, waiting on a chance from either.
But the Guillemot is generally surrounded by other Guillemots, and the birds are often so densely packed along the ledges that there is scarcely standing room, so it seems, for all of them.
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